MAISD PowerSchool

The MAISD PowerSchool Support Team has created this email newsletter to keep our district contacts and stakeholders updated on current needs, future updates, and tips and tricks to make using PowerSchool more convenient and effective.

Please let us know if someone else should receive this newsletter by emailing Joel Selby at jselby@muskegonisd.org.

• We've completed initial setup of PowerSchool for 2025-26 for nearly all servers. Once you have a 2025-26 option in the term selector, you can go ahead and begin pre-registering students for next year. If you've already registered some before next year was available, we may need to adjust their entry and exit dates. The term dates were assumed for most districts. When final dates are determined, the district should submit a helpdesk ticket and we will update them en masse for all students.
• Save the Date! If you're responsible for any part of the End of Year (EOY) process, consider attending our annual PowerSchool EOY meeting, scheduled for May 13, 2025, 1:00-3:30 PM, at the MAISD. More information will be shared later. The second half of the meeting will be specifically for State Reporting/Pupil Accounting folks.

The Community Service plugin allows you to track community service hours inside of PowerSchool with the ability for students and parents to see progress as well. You also have the option to set a goal number of hours and track completion through reports.

If you're interested in a demo of the plugin or have any questions, please submit an MAISD PowerSchool Help Desk ticket.

We recently rolled out a new plugin for tracking English Learner/Multilanguage Learner accommodations. The alert appears as a dotted globe (based on the WIDA logo). Clicking on the alert icon brings up a popup with the student's preferred home communication language, accommodations that have been connected to the student by EL staff, and their most recent WIDA scores.

Note: The English Learner plugin does not collect information from teachers on accommodations delivered, it only shows which accommodations the student should receive.

We're working on adding more helpful reminders and tools throughout PowerSchool. Here are a few recent additions:

• Added helpful information and error checking warnings to several areas of PowerScheduler
• The MCVA building on local district servers will now auto-check the "Include Remote Enrollments" checkbox
• Added guidance to the top of the Meeting Attendance and Teacher Attendance Submission Status pages
• Added explanation for the Default Term Level setting on schools' Additional Preferences page
• Added number of sections in the current year next to Teachers' names on the Teacher Schedules page
• Added indicator to Quick Lookup to show whether grades are shown for each Reporting Term from Current (gradebook) or Historical (stored)

New Staff

Be sure to notify the PowerSchool Team when new staff members are hired. New staff will be given a PowerSchool Training account and assigned the appropriate learning path. Learning paths include online courses relevant to the job the staff member will be performing. This will provide a foundation of PowerSchool knowledge. Once the online training has been completed, we suggest scheduling a one-on-one in person or virtual training with a PowerSchool team member to answer any questions and provide further instruction.

Ongoing Training

The PowerSchool Team is available to provide training to staff on an as needed basis. Please contact us to schedule training.

Throughout the School Year

The PowerSchool Team holds annual training sessions throughout the school year for elementary scheduling, beginning of the year, end of the year, and PowerSchool 101. Please contact the PowerSchool Team for dates and times. Training dates are also published in this newsletter.

• Asset Tracking - Allows admin staff/technology departments to track ownership of Chromebooks and/or other devices, as well as keep repair logs.
• Community Service - Allows staff to log community service hours for students, the total required, and keep track of the cumulative total. Information is also displayed in the Parent/Student portal.
• Positive Behavior Acknowledgments - Allows teachers and admin staff to acknowledge students' positive behaviors, track data over time, and automatically notify parents and students.
• SWIS Integration - Allows log entries in PowerSchool to be sent to SWIS.
• Enrollment Queue (Registration)/Demographic Update - Online enrollment, yearly forms and demographic info update within the Parent Portal.
• Chronic Absenteeism - Allows districts to quickly view students who have met attendance thresholds, generate attendance letters en masse, track parent meetings, and generate reports as needed.
• Accommodation Log - Allows teachers to enter accommodations offered (accepted and refused) for students with an IEP or 504 plan. The data is stored, reportable, and accessible to parents.
• Other - 31a Reporting, Online Report Cards, among others.

The PowerSchool Team can create automated jobs that integrate the flow of data between PowerSchool and third party software applications, removing the need to compile data and upload it manually.

The PowerSchool Team can write a variety of reports, including data reports, detail reports, analytical reports, and student performance reports (report cards, progress reports, transcripts).

Day to day support, secondary scheduling, standards support, and all things related to PowerSchool!

Submit a PowerSchool Helpdesk Ticket

Bill Smith, SIS Support Specialist

Joel Selby, SIS Support Specialist

Keith Jelinek, SIS Support Specialist

Heidi Strong, SIS Helpdesk

Website: https://www.muskegonisd.org/techservices/ps/
Location: 630 Harvey Street, Muskegon, MI, USA
Phone: (231) 767-0414